Making music on a computer sucked for me until I understood this

After 25 years of producing I'm now struggling with this because it feels like I have so much knowledge that it gives me endless possibilities and it kills my creativity.

Never delete anythng. Especially if you're new to producing. The more you learn the better you get. I went back two years and listened to some tracks I made that sucked, but they had good bones so I polished them and made them better.

I’ve always felt the danger of the daw is your more likely to compose with your eyes than your ears.

Problem with DAWs is that you are musician/performer, producer, sound designer and mixing engineer at the same time. It helps to kind of separate these things and not try to do them all at once.

Funny isn't it, when people first started talking about making music on a computer they would say the possibility is endless and now people are saying limit yourself.

My english isnt the greatest but i wanna share a tip that really helped me. I caught myself creating uninspiring melodies and drums based on how i would react after i added a note or a sample. i wasnt feeling/improvising i was reacting. what changed for me is litterally recording my melodies by singing them and beatboxing the drums. after that you replace that with midi and samples. the entire process becomes way more organic.

Duplicate your 8 bar loop x 20 . Now Mute all parts. Hit play and unmute clips on the fly. Pausing not allowed. limitation and constraints are key. I actually bounce to audio asap to commit and move forward. You will get totally different and usually better results.

There's a formula I use now to do all sorts of things with computers - not just music, but art, writing, programming, everything: I have to keep a journal nearby and some pens. I have a whole supply of those things, different formats, sizes, colors. As soon as I feel stuck or have trouble continuing, I rely on the process of transcribing, simplifying, and commenting on my work by hand, turning those notes into a little art project by using the different colors to mark things up. It doesn't have to be the paper medium, it could be, in the case of music, having an instrument nearby and trying to perform it. But it has to get me away from just choosing options from a menu, and towards making the work move through my hands. If I'm still stuck, the big guns that I bring out next are more philosophical - figuring out what the Venn diagram I want to end up with is, and then making work that fits into that diagram. Sometimes stepping back and looking at the high concept and saying "am I doing something contradictory" is all that's needed to break through a creative block: a lot of projects fail because there are some fundamental contradictions, and we avoid acknowledging those contradictions by adding technical scope to the project. When I do the Venn diagram the aim is to eliminate that and get to a nice overlapping space where all the elements work well with each other.

Great video. Honestly I think a lot of it is that with the DAW it’s easier for us to make unfair judgements about the arrangement with our eyes. To us, seeing all the blocks in a formation might make us think something is “boring” or “lifeless” when our eyes are unfairly telling us “Hey, there’s the 16 bar intro, then an 8 bar break…” etc. It’s almost like giving us the ability to see the future. We think DAW is boring but maybe only because we are seeing when the changes are going to happen. With hardware or the electribe in your case, you often don’t see when exactly those changes are going to happen. So you do it by feel. But I’m willing to bet that if you multi-tracked out that performance and saw the blocks on a timeline again, you might be more harsh on the track then what’s really fair. What has helped me in the past was this: when listening back to a track, DO NOT follow along with your eyes. Minimize the DAW, look somewhere else, do anything. But the second you start following the playhead with your eyes you kind of take the magic and mystery out of your own creations that way.

The best way to stifle creativity? Too many choices. So true.

one of the best things i ever did for my electronic music was setting myself up to do as much work by playing it as possible. I no longer program my drums, i play all of them. I play my own keys, my own leads, i chop vocals using a sampler that i play the lines on, etc. it has made a night and day difference in the liveliness of my tracks without a doubt. my keyboard was $900, 88 keys, drum pads, etc, but it was so worth it

This is why I practically never work in the arrangement view. I lay out everything in session view, map the most relevant parameters on the midi controller and play it in live with automation. I might tweak from there, shorten certain bits or or replace single clips, but the bones and automation stay for the most part. It just feels more organic that way and like I'm actually playing music. Keyboard and mouse just feels so ... removed? Another thing that really helps for me is to work on a laptop on the sofa when I'm working on the arrangement. When I'm at a desk it feels like I'm at the office, even if it's a fancy desk with outboard equipment.

Turning vst synths directly into audio as fast as possible helps me a lot! Whether that's bouncing the midi data or playing it directly into a bus that's recording, it helps me move along and keep focus

omg thank you... that is exactly what I do with the mouse and keyboard - make a ton of lifeless and forgotten tracks and just fills up the hard drive. I dots were there - just never connected them. Thank you for this video.

Take any track by any band or producer and repeat sections of it hours and hours again and it is quaranteed that at some point you start to notice mistakes, and besides that, your ears get so tired of repeating digital audio that your brain literally sends pain signals and stress hormones around your body to stop you doing that. Your ears getting tired is the main issue when working with music on computers, since evolution has not yet cached on how to properly handle digital audio. Best practises I've learned is to take breaks every 30min, and make tracks with very low volume. Also detaching yourself from your own productions help tremendously.

This video just showed up in my feed. I just started getting back into making music and have been dedicating myself to learning everything I can about the DAW. I had bought a MPD years ago but never used it, but finally decided to pull it out a couple days ago. Messing around with sounds with the MPD have completely changed everything for me, and all my music has more of a bounce to it. I was planning to search online to see what anyone thought about this difference, and this video shows up in my feed without searching.

Never quit though! If it gets stale, save exit open another and start fresh. Come back to old idea later with new perspective/mood

Reason is the only DAW that has that harware feeling for me. It has the healthy speed.

Since I'm a bit older I feel free to throw in my two cents. In the early 80s I started recording with analog gear (what else😂) i.e. a Tascam 4 track tape recorder. Even though it served the purpose (for a while) I always thought/hoped that there must be a better medium for recording stuff. A few years later the digital revolution kicked in and I embraced it full heartedly. I got my first digital 8 track recorder and then switched to Cubase. For me it was manna from heaven and I haven't looked back since. But having that said: the best equipment is what you're most comfortable with!

One downside of getting to know more and more about production/mixing overall is the fact that it will slowly kill your creativity.. you will end up not producing exactly how you envisioned in your head ... another thing that I´ve noticed my dudes is the fact that having a lot of different plugins DOES NOT help aswell because by the time you pick 1 of the 50 compressors or 1 of the 25 limiters you have, you already forgot what you were doing, it really is a massive distraction... So in conclusion, keep it up boys, if it sounds good, RELEASE IT